


SVU Drabbles

by snakeling



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: AU, BDSM, Canonical Character Death, Catholic Character, Drabble Collection, Gen, Homophobic Language, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-10
Updated: 2019-06-10
Packaged: 2019-10-25 19:15:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 1,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17731037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snakeling/pseuds/snakeling
Summary: Drabble collection. Will probably be a mixed bag, though it will stay monofandom.





	1. Law School

**Author's Note:**

> A drabble is 100 words, no more, no less. Yes, this is a hill I'm ready to die on.

Sonny Carisi applies to become a detective the minute he gets enough years of experience on the job.

He's overlooked once, then twice, and he tries to tell himself that there are officers with more experience and more knowledge than he has.

Then he is passed over again, while Tony Anderson, whom everyone knows is dumber than a bag of bricks, is promoted. The idiot brags that a fag like Sonny has no chance of making it.

Sonny suspected as much.

He wants to give himself an edge, so he enrolls in Law School.

He didn't expect to like it.


	2. Just Sex

They haven’t talked about what they’re doing.

They fell into bed almost by accident, after too much work and too little sleep, and they’ve been doing it ever since, once or twice a week.

Barba tells himself that it’s sex, it’s just sex but he knows it’s more, when Carisi cooks him dinner and packs the leftovers for his next lunch. It’s more, when Barba lets Carisi cry himself out on his shoulder after a particularly trying case, and nags him into going to therapy.

By now they’re well past disclosure territory. Maybe it’s time they did something about it.


	3. First Time

There is a non-zero chance that Sonny might hurl. He probably should have taken a paper bag to breathe in.

It makes no sense. It’s not exactly his first time in a courtroom. It’s not even as if the trial is high-stakes. It’s a simple DUI, for God’s sake, the perfect thing for a new ADA to cut their teeth on.

Sonny feels unconscionably anxious anyway.

Just then, Barba walks by, even though he can’t have any business in this part of the building, and winks at him. Barba doesn’t stop, he doesn’t say anything, yet Sonny feels immediately better.


	4. Coming Out

Dominick and Tessa Carisi are not bad people, but they are Catholic, conservative, and painfully narrow in their views.

Today, Sonny has enough.

His father is in the middle of some derogatory comments about Matthew Shepard’s sexuality. Sonny interrupts him. “I’m gay, too.”

It kills all conversation as everyone turns to him in various degrees of disbelief. Sonny cuts a piece of meat, trying to appear more confident than he actually is. From the corner of his eye, he can see his father opening his mouth.

“Do you have a boyfriend?” his Nonna asks.

Relieved, Sonny tells her about Joe.


	5. Detective Furball

Sonny gets called at a crime scene and leaves it with pretty much no clues and a half-drowned kitten, so young her eyes haven’t opened yet.

Over the next few weeks, he takes her everywhere with him, including the precinct, as he has to give her a bottle every few hours. He finds a couple of unis willing to help, and Rollins gives him a hand, too, even if Sonny has to put up with her endless ribbing.

The cat becomes an unofficial member of the squad by the third time she calms down an upset victim with a purr.


	6. A Left Turn at Albuquerque

Rafael is thirty and riding high on the heels of winning his first real case. It’s a night for celebrating, and Rafael is going to have one glass of expensive scotch, then he’ll bring home some pretty young thing to top off the evening. Maybe the lithe young man who is shaking his hips to the music with more enthusiasm than talent.

Rafael leans to the bartender. “Can you send him another of what he’s having?” He nods toward the dancer. “From Rafael.”

The man accepts the beer and joins him. “Hi! I’m Sonny!” he says brightly, extending his hand.


	7. Works and Pomps

Rafael has a love-hate relationship with the Church, like most lapsed Catholics. Like most Catholics, probably. He knows that Carisi, for all his faith, has his own moments of doubt, his own misgivings.

He was lucky. Sexual abuse is something he discovered as an adult, reading the Boston Globe report, not something he experienced personally.

But it’s not the only area where the Church fails its flock, and the young Rafael who innocently confessed his attraction to another boy was irremediably scarred by the priest’s reaction, the swift condemnation and every damaging word that followed.

And yet.

Rafael crosses himself.


	8. Domestic

They caught Heredio, but they still don’t know who is behind him, and so Barba has been removed from his beloved Brooklyn Heights apartment and brought to this nondescript house in upstate New York.

Very few people know of his location.

Liv, of course, because she’s in charge of the investigation by virtue of being the only cop Dodds can trust.

Carisi knows too, because he’s holed up right with him, cooking Barba delicious meals and sticking to him like glue until Barba feels like screaming at the man to make a move already.

Too bad Carisi is a professional.


	9. His New Best Friend (1)

Sonny is bored out of his skull. Grown-ups are speechifying, his sisters have disappeared, and he’s stuck here. He’s gonna die if he has to remain still any longer.

Yeah, okay, it’s his dad receiving a medal, but whatever. Do they have to talk so much about it?

Another boy, maybe a little older, slinks next to him.

“Hi, I’m Mike. You wanna play with me? There’s an empty room over there.”

Sonny turns pleading eyes to his Ma.

She smiles at the boy. “You’re Captain Dodds’s son, are you? All right, Sonny love, you can go. Behave yourself, boys.”


	10. His New Best Friend (2)

He slipped in the seat next to Sonny’s. “Sorry I’m late.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Sonny said. He waited until Mike had taken the beer bottle Sonny had ordered for him and clinked lightly against it. “Congratulations.”

“Oh God. I completely forgot you worked there when I asked for SVU.”

“When your dad asked for you, you mean.”

Mike didn’t answer, not that Sonny had seriously expected him too. He was well aware of the Dodds family dynamics.

“So, how do you want to play it? Should I tell the Lieu that we’ve been best friends since we were kids?”


	11. His New Best Friend (3)

Sonny feels numb. He’s felt numb ever since he came back to the hospital and saw Liv’s despairing face.

They never did reveal their friendship, so he can feel the squad’s surprise when he steps up to the lectern after Alice’s eulogy.

Sonny tells a couple of funny anecdotes from Mike’s childhood and manages to get half the church chuckling even as his throat is choking on unshed tears.

He goes back to his pew, sandwiched between Rollins and Barba, and works on regulating his breathing. Fingers interlace with his and squeeze gently in support. Sonny clings to their lifeline.


	12. Mourning

For someone who talks so much, Carisi is a really good listener.

He stays after the rest of the squad went home and just says, “Tell me about your grandmother.” Rafael doesn’t ask how he knows. He didn’t tell anyone, not even Liv, but there was an announcement in the newspaper.

He doesn’t want to answer at first — what business is it of Carisi’s anyway?

The thing is, Carisi is easy to talk to, easy to trust with confessions. So Rafael talks, the words coming up easily, until they bring up more fresh tears that he buries on Carisi’s shoulder.


	13. Silver

When Sonny sleeps, Rafael trails his fingers through the strands of his hair, soft and free of product. Sonny’s temples are completely grey, and the rest of his head is well on its way there, and he hasn’t even hit forty.

His own hair, and especially his beard, are coming in salt and pepper now. Rafael used to yank the white hair as they came in, but he’s lost that battle months ago, now. He thought about dyeing them, but it takes a lot of work and time to maintain, and he couldn’t bear the humiliation if people found out.


	14. The Baby Whisperer

When Sonny enters the precinct, he’s met with pandemonium.

Three unis have tackled a man to the ground and are handcuffing him. A baby is screaming its head off and several different people are shouting to be heard over its cries, adding to the dim.

Sonny steps in and asks the desperate young mother, “May I?”

She hands him her kid without question. Her eyes are shadowed blue with exhaustion.

Sonny folds the baby in his arms, bounces a little from the knees, croons a lullaby, and the kid immediately stops fussing, suckling on the tip of Sonny’s little finger.


	15. With Great Power

Carisi kneels, wearing nothing but his own handcuffs. His beautiful blue eyes are glazed over, and his mouth is slightly open, his breathing deep and relaxed.

Rafael thought Carisi would like to try bondage. Obviously, or he wouldn’t have suggested it. But he had no idea how hard and fast Carisi would slip into subspace.

It’s a huge responsibility. The amount of trust Carisi is so casually displaying feels out of proportion for their on again off again fuckbuddy relationship. Rafael wants to be worthy of it.

He slips his hand into Carisi’s hair, dishevelling him. “My very good boy.”


	16. The New Guy In Town

Olivia didn’t know the gangly ADA who turned up half an hour after her phone call, but he’d visibly learned to dress at Rafael Barba’s knee. He was impeccably tailored into a slim three-piece suit. The colors were more sedate than Rafael’s, but they flattered his coloring.

His hair was turning silver, and Olivia mentally added ten years to her initial estimate of his age.

On his way to her, he side-stepped an out-of-control perp and neatly immobilized him in a move straight out of the Academy handbook.

Interesting.

He smiled at her, dimples all out. “Hi! I’m ADA Carisi.”


	17. Care

“Are you going to encourage me to drown my problems in alcohol, too?” Rafael asked, aggressive.

Carisi considered him thoughtfully. “No. In fact I’d prefer it if you weren’t too intoxicated to consent.”

Rafael frowned. “Consent? Consent to what?”

“I want you to trust me enough that you’ll kneel for me, and let me tie you up and take care of you.”

Rafael forced himself to look nonchalant, but there was a gleam in Carisi’s eye that told him he’d failed.

“I’m a grown-up. I don’t need to be taken care of.”

Carisi didn’t answer, and that was answer enough.


	18. Not perfect, but the best that there is

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Couldn't contain this one in 100 words, so have a double drabble.

“Dominick Carisi. I work with the Innocence Project.”

Rafael feels the blood drain from his face. “Which one of my cases do you think I fucked up to the point of sending an innocent to prison?”

“Not actually one of yours,” Carisi says, taking out a manila folder. “But you may have worked on it as an intern. I think? I’m sorry, I’m not the primary on that case. It’s based off Boston, but you’re here and I’m here, so. I’m repaying a favor.”

The explanation’s not very coherent, but Rafael gets the gist. “Which case?”

“Isaiah Jefferson.” Carisi hands over a picture, but Rafael doesn’t need it, because he remembers it.

“I worked on that one. It’s the last case I worked on there. I remember recommending all charges be dropped.” Rafael purses his lips. “I take it they weren’t?”

Carisi shakes his head. “He got life.” He leans over, excitation plain on his face. “Tell me everything you remember.”

Rafael taps the desktop with his fingers before reaching a conclusion. The only conclusion, really. “I’ll do you one better and give you my copy of the research I did for that case.”

“You kept it?”

“I keep everything.”


End file.
